‘What will be my specialty?’
I got to talking with some colleagues this week, and the conversation turned to “specializations.” The group included a magazine editor, and she remarked that she feels today’s college graduates in the print majors need to be strong writers and editors and learn a bit about the “visual side,” but not expect to be strong [...]
Packaging news and info differently
It’s not a new concept to package news and information on print pages to resemble Web pages. What does that mean? Instead of a long narrative, a reporter might write a shorter text story, and show the rest as: A map An illustrative graphic A text sidebar A list A breakout of any kind In [...]
It’s all in the preparation: Video
In my reporting class, I tell a story about a painting project I did once with my father-in-law, a true handyman. I was downstairs first and eager to begin. I literally had brush in hand when he descended the stairs and called a halt. He informed me that there was at least a day of [...]
Follow a process when editing
Not long ago, we had a situation in our household: the case of the missing milk. “Someone” had put the half-gallon of milk on the running board of the truck when he was loading groceries into the vehicle, and that was the last that he saw of it. Not a happy ending. Compare that to [...]
More views: Leaner copy desks
A quick post to bring your attention to an article published on vocus.com about the connection between mistakes in news products and leaner copy desks. The article was written by Katrina Mendolera, editor in chief of inVocus, who earned her master’s degree at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. We have posted before about [...]
Copy editors: How little do you care?
The other night, we were watching a TV show, and someone said: “He could care less.” Our heads snapped in each other’s direction. NO! The expression is, “couldn’t care less.” It means that someone cares so little, that the person could not possibly care less. The phrase is commonly misspoken and misstated. Why do I [...]
